For the first time, many California winegrape growers are facing the dilemma of what to do with fruit that will not be sold. Although wine inventories have been slowly building over the past few years, 2019 is the first year in which a number of growers are feeling the effects of excess supply due to the large 2018 crop.

Given that yields thus far for most growers have been “average” or better and there is significant unsold inventory of bulk wines, custom crushing uncontracted grapes in 2019 may not be a viable option. Hopefully there will be buyers as the harvest continues, but in this market, the prices offered are likely to be less than the cost of production.

Allowing unsold fruit to remain on the vines...

The dates are among the world's oldest cultivated fruits, widespread throughout North Africa, the Middle East and Southern Asia. Over the last century, distribution has extended to the United States, South Africa, India and Australia. In general, the geographical distribution of commercial date production is limited to areas that can be described as arid and semi-arid and where there is abundant water supply. The best date palm growing regions are characterized by long, hot, dry summers with minimal summer/fall rainfall. In other words, long, hot and arid growing season is required for date palm growth and to develop, mature and ripen fruits. Early maturing varieties such as Mejhool and Deglet Noor in the California low...

Like any livestock management tool, livestock guardian dogs come with both costs and (hopefully) benefits. Some of these are easily calculated - for example, through today, we've spent $624.70 on dog food and veterinary costs related to our livestock guardian dogs this year. We currently have 3 dogs (Bodie, a 3-year-old I purchased as a pup for $350; Elko, a 2-year-old given to me as a pup; and Dillon, a 9-month-old pup purchased for $500). Some of the costs and benefits are less easily calculated, however; how do I know how many sheep didn't die because we had dogs with them? What is the value of my own peace of mind? A recent paper by Dr. Ellen Bruno (Cooperative Extension specialist in agriculture and resource economics at UC...

Some instances of significant scorch of the leaf canopy in Golden Hills orchards have come to my attention in the past two weeks. We do not understand the causes of scorch, and the most prominent cultivar demonstrating symptoms over the years has been the male cultivar Peters.

Scorch is not a disease but appears to develop, abiotically, later in the season, under hot temperatures. In my breeding work, there appears to be a strong genetic component in whether a given set of progeny will develop leaf scorch and associated early leaf defoliation.

I have also observed that with respect to Peters and other breeding selections in our trials that scorch appears more readily in some years than in others. Water stress later in...